Living in a caravan full time, what to do and how to do it, or rather, how I am doing it. Which may well be completely wrong! We will find out!!

Sunday, 1 August 2010

Welcome!Over the coming days, weeks, months we will be hopefully supplying useful information and an insight into the do's and dont's of living in a caravan! Worked out the hard way!

We both work full time, and our decision to give up our rented house has been a massive life style choice. Based on the fact that all our bills seem to be increasing monthly and our incomes decreasing monthly, so obviously something needed to be done - and quick!

There is only so many savings one can make, so when you are down to the bare bones of existence and you are still struggling something radical has to happen!

But before I continue, a little bit of background information for you.

We bought our first caravan for £157.00 from good old ebay. We travelled upto Preston to collect it, we live in North Dorset. It, so far has been worth every penny. We have now had it a year and a half.

We both enjoy going to the local steam shows, as a) its a good day out, b) you can camp there cheaply. c) the beer is very cheap! However we soon found out that if we exhibited we could get in for nothing! So this made it a very inexpensive weekend away.

We have a 1940's Woseley stationary engine, with gleaming brass and copper pipes! This was our first year of exhibiting and after doing 4 or 5 found them immensely relaxing and enjoyable! oh and cheap!

Our time spent in our caravan has always been fun and relaxing, not too sure how it will work out full time but, with few options left open to us, why not give it a go!

So as today is August the 1st, we have exactly one month left on our lease, and we have started to put all our wordly goods up for sale on ebay! So if you want to take a look and grab a potential bargain you can find us at "chesters-emporium" on ebay!

Our plan is quite simple, we all ready own a caravan, ok its only a 2 berth, but we still have a double garage/lockup which we can store various items long term. We sell up, and with the proceeds of the sale, it gets put towards a bigger caravan. If we dont quite have enough we have worked out that it would only take us a couple of months of saving to have enough money to upgrade to a slightly better caravan. Well thats the plan anyway.

It all looks good on paper!

We have roughly calculated that with no household bills we would save approx £450 per month. Our rent is currently approx £600 per month. To live on campsites at an average of £20 per night is still £600 per month, however, with the rallies and discounts for low season this comes down to an average of £400 per month so offering us a potential saving of approx £650 per month that we havent got to spend! Now if you boss came upto you and said, heres a wage increase of £650 per month you would be daft not to take it, ok theres a couple of conditions, but, you would seriously have to consider it! Wouldnt you?

We have decided that we would only use campsites with full shower/toilet facilities, we could do it cheaper by staying on sites without these, but as our caravan is a little old, we didnt want to put it under too much stress, besides that we have never used the shower in our van as the shower tray is cracked and the water pump is a bit goosed!

So there you have it so far!

We are both in our early 40's no dependant children and we have a small dog, a caravan, and no overdraft, and no debt!

About Me

Refusing to be politically correct and nannied by the state, I dont need a wrapper around my takeaway coffee informing me its hot, I know it is! If it wasnt I would want my bloody money back!
Please feel free to contact me at joolsmauro@gmail.com